Our message said compromised as well. I am very angry that this happened. We barely use credit cards, have an excellent credit rating, try to stay on top of things and now this. What to do now? I haven't a clue.

If you freeze the report you will not be able to get any kind of loan or credit card that uses those reports. You have to remember to put in an unlock when you want those things.

That message you got Rebecka is also not exactly perfect, it's got its hand in the till like the rest of the places. You should not have to pay fees to lock your report. Unfortunately all of those "free sign ups" have fine print that says "for the first month only after which you get hit with $20 a month". You don't need all of those sign ups in order to get your reports. In NJ you're due those once a year without any charge at all. The big 3 bureaus make millions when you only realize later the "free report" was actually signing up for a service you don't need. Make sure you do your request to lock and your reports without any sign up. All you're doing is giving them the chance to charge you and updating your info at the same time.

I can't stomach the people that hold all that info hostage to try to get you on their $20/mo service giving you a year free. They are the people who bungled it and let your info out in the first place. Who trusts that service now? It's worse than being free. If they really wanted to compensate you, they would give you a years worth of service from their competitors. ;-)

Part of the problem too is that there are far more of these places than just the big 3. You can't be going around to 9000 service bureaus that you can't even find them all anyway. The info itself is far too readily available.

When the CEO of Lifelock had his own identity stolen a dozen times in a year even though protected by his own service, I don't have a lot of faith in it. Little faith in any of these people to control the flow of data.

I try to be as proactive as possible with my bank, not with the credit bureaus. I have opted in to fraud checks on credit and debit cards. I get a text and email with every single credit card purchase. Cashiers at Shoprite are always wondering what that sound was they just heard when I used my credit card. I would know in seconds if anything was wrong with any of my accounts.

Mine says it was not affected by this incident....but honestly even if it had been I don't think I would go crazy over it. Our personal info is everywhere theses days so in my opinion I feel like it could be compromised anywhere at anytime

My company alerted us this week that our medical records may have been hacked. It's a small percent of employees, if any , but in order to be proactive they have signed us all up to received free ID monitoring from a company named Kroll.

I work for a $35 billion dollar global company and this is who they chose to work with.

I am leary about giving my personal information until I read up on it but if we have any type of ID fraud, this agency will send someone to my home to help. That's kind of scary too.

Isn't a credit report freeze for a limited time only? The scariest article I read mentioned that SS# and birthdate don't change throughout your life, so if they have those they can wait and use them to apply for credit in your name or steal your income tax refund a year from now, 5 years.. 10 or more.

A credit card can at least be closed if it's compromised. Not sure how to manage a compromised life! If we are impacted and a class action lawsuit is opened in NJ I would opt in. I'm not a lawsuit person, but this makes me so angry that 'they' gather this data without our permission and hold us hostage to it for everything.. and now they lose it.

Best thing I can think of to do is find the best available anti-fraud protection and pay for it for life.

Lifelock is total utter garbage. Don't sign on to Equifax and their free monitoring for a year. You take yourself out of holding them legally responsible. Keep monitoring your own credit and adding 90 day fraud alerts yourself for free. In the meantime, wait for class actions or do it yourself with chatbot. They really need to pay for their negligence and not letting the people know for weeks. Just enough time for the execs to offload their stock.

Wow, a mere pittance for simply signing on versus getting nothing for doing nothing. Something sounds better than nothing, IMO.... :>) Do you have to use your own stamp? Every time I get one, I always wonder ---- where do you file this for taxes but then remember those sage words from KB, "don't worry about it stranger, there's no danger; it's only a mere pittance" and so I don't worry.

Different ID Protections rate differently depending on the rating service but lifelock and kroll are usually in the top echelon. With Kroll, the service might be more compartmentalized like ID protection vs. credit card protection --- you will want to review that. I am on lifelock because it's a corporate benefit. Also have joined almost every other major for a bit whenever someone screws up and offers a free subscription to cover. Just part of life now.

I have to imagine the govt. will figure out the tax refund scams soon; that is ridiculous.

The Equifax site has mediation as the way you sign on for if there is a dispute with no right to sue. The service they are providing has the same terms. The jury is still out on weather that applies but to be safe they are recommending to not use the Equifax free monitoring. I do the same a GC with fraud alerts and I just froze my accounts on all three to be a little more sure for the time being. I will eventually change all my credit card numbers if this situation worsens.

The only thing I can think of that Equifax could do to possibly make this right is to lobby the Federal Government to issue everyone affected new ss#'s, and then pay for the cost of them doing so. Won't hold my breath for that to happen, though.

Does anyone know how long the freeze lasts if we do this? Is it for a certain time period only or until we request the freeze to be lifted?

This feels more and more like an elaborate and socially accepted form of extortion. How can it even be legal for an industry to collect someone's information, sell it to others, and then threaten you with personal disaster if you don't pay to protect it? smh

You do need to freeze each separately. I think you can do both on one call.

I got Experian phone to work for me, web site for wife. Equifax web site for wife, not for me. Transunion ---- forget that website, can't even get on. Phone works but have to be creative about the choices to get to representative. They are not ready for this; call centers are not even set up to handle the load.

hktownie, It is called a "security freeze" which is permanent until you say otherwise. This is far better than a regular freeze which as you stated before is temporary. You must implement this on all 3 credit reporting agencies for this to be effective. There is no charge to do this. If you need to release your report for whatever reason,they will provide you with a P.I.N.. You must tell them how long this release will last,a day, week,month etc..There is a nominal fee to do this,around $5, sometimes it is free. This is by far the best, most economical way to protect your credit. Keep in mind that you will not be able to access your credit report to take advantage of the $100 off your $1,000 dollar purchase at the local store(s) unless you release your report. It is also a hassle to find out which reporting agency they use,when and if you need to release your report and sometimes you have to release all 3.

We don't ever get the store cards and almost never apply for anything so freezing (or having to unfreeze) them won't be an issue.

I absolutely cannot stand making phone calls to "customer service departments"... so not sure what I'm going to do. I'd probably need a Xanax to call 3 agencies and spend half my day waiting on hold... and don't happen to have one of those handy. ;-)

he freezes his credit reports (self and spouse) with transunion and he says they communicate to the other credit agencies so they will freeze them too? And it's free and expires after about 3 months. He gets an email reminder when it expires and just logs on and freezes it again. He's been doing this for a long time.

The more that comes out regarding this Equifax breach, the worse it seems to get. Latest news says that Equifax knew about this early this year and other than certain exec's dumping stock (going to be some insider trading investigations here), have done next to nothing. Equifax could and probably should get "Enron'd" over this.

I too, have had my credit files "frozen" for 15+ years with all three companies - Equifax, Experian and Transunion yet, when I go to Equifaxsecurity2017.com to check the breach, Equifax says that my files "may" have been affected. The next step believe it or not, is to give them more personal information for further protections, doesn't even say what they want to charge your for this "service" - probably the last step after you've provided these clowns with this info.

At this point, I don't want to give them anything, has anyone out there checked this Equifax site to see what it says about their info?

yeah, they blew it with the data breech, they blew it with the cover up, and now they are blowing it again with their 'fix' which demands you give the last 6 digits of your SS #,

really??

excuse me , but aren't they part of the 'be careful' IT security crowd that has preached for decades now to not give personal info out to questionable sources? right? and now they have a rinky dink quick one off web site that explains little to nothing and then demands a lot of specific very personal info?

not gonna do it,

this really feels like a grand phishing scheme of epic proportions to me,

My grandson works in this department of his corporation. One of his colleagues. Made up a totally false name and info. Submitted it and got a reply "may" have been affected I asked him what I should do. He said nothing. I said I never did online banking. I have immediately notification of things spent on my credit card. and have a dally $200 max a day on the debit card. He has an instance notification on all his cards on his Iphone. He said he swipes the card and the phone rings.

If you work at a large company, ask your employer to look into Lifelock Employer elite plan. For less than $9 per month, it offers you up to $1 million coverage for stolen funds, plus handles any stolen identity issues. Includes investment monitoring. Not that they can't be hacked, but having your identity stolen can be expensive. It would help.

BDog: "not gonna do it, this really feels like a grand phishing scheme of epic proportions to me" is probably not going to work out well for a percentage of people.

OG --- yes, I used fraudulent info and was told I might be affected. Just made me want to institute the freeze since nobody knows whether you are affected or not. Credit card usage notification is nice if somebody uses your credit card account but will not protect your from someone using your identity to create new credit lines. That's why you put the freeze on.

MAJA --- yes, I have lifelock but still put the freeze on. Hey, I don't need new lines of credit, not looking for a job, and screw the credit rating companies, strangerdanger has left the credit verification building, one less American for them to profit from. And I expect the $5 to be waived if they ever want me back again.

Another protection, if you have this type of relationship, is my wife and I spilt accounts, some in her name, some in mine. Thus theft of a single SSN only affects half our glory.... :>(

My experience, and I am sure it gets better every day, is that the three bureaus are overwhelmed with freeze requests. Online freezes were easier so I did those first, but could not be completed in 60% of the cases. I could not get any automated phone versions to work ever but 1-880-talk-to-a-human did work. So between my wife and myself, I did 2 freezes online, 3 by 1-800-human with results in the mail, and on with Equifax with a human where I have to call back in 48 hours to complete the deal. That one is just weird.

No company allowed me to do both online and I could do none of mine SSN online. I think it's because my son and I share the same name, same address, and this seems to bother the online system.